Salford has been named one of England’s worst blackspots for booze-related sickness.

New NHS figures reveal the hospital admission rate for alcohol related disease or injuries per 100,000 population in the city was 1,754 – higher than anywhere else in the country.

Figures for the Salford area also showed there were 3,900 admissions where the cause was wholly down to alcohol in 2011/12. And Manchester was not far behind, with 1,254 people per 100,000 residents being admitted for booze-linked problems, such as liver failure, stroke, and acute intoxication.

Doctors and nurses also counted domestic accidents, road collisions, and assaults where drink had played a role.

The shocking figures come just weeks after David Cameron’s government dropped plans to bring in new minimum pricing laws for drink.

Disappointed health campaigners say the failure to combat cheap booze deals in pubs and supermarkets will spell misery for those battling drink problems. Leading health experts in the region said the high admission rates in Salford reflected wider inequalities.

Prof Penny Cook, a researcher from Salford University who has studied alcohol consumption, said: “Rates are particularly high in areas where there are high levels of social inequality, such as Salford.

“Illness due to alcohol shadows many other health concerns, since Salford also suffers worse than average rates of many other health issues. However, alcohol is not just a problem confined to deprived parts of the country. It is an issue that affects us all.

“A vast amount of money is spent on treating people with alcohol-related disease.

“ While rates of many chronic diseases such as heart disease in the UK have been gradually falling, deaths due to liver disease have been increasing, largely caused by alcohol.”

In July, the government ruled it would not seek to introduce a minimum price for a unit of alcohol in England and Wales, despite the fact that similar legislation has been successfully introduced in Scotland.

Prof Cook said: “Arguments that a minimum price would punish the sensible majority are not valid. If you look at survey data it is true that most people record that they drink less than the government ‘risky levels’ of alcohol.However, when you look at the quantity of alcohol sold (from taxation data), you find that the average alcohol consumption per drinker per week is around 26 units—this would be deemed a risky level for males and females. Therefore, the average drinker is not a ‘sensible drinker.”